Institutions protect harmful practices by deliberately avoiding studying their effects

Evidence

However, during congressional hearings, efforts to determine the size of the budget for research on the effects of exposure to televised violence drew a blank. Oliver Treyz was unaware of any such studies at ABC: “We have not, to my knowledge, expended any funds on the specific reaction of children to action-adventure shows” (Senate Hearings, 1962). Joseph Klapper spoke in hypothetical terms about the willingness of CBS to do so (Baker & Ball, 1969). Neither respondent showed much in the way of concerned curiosity or a sense of obligation to find out how their programs were affecting viewers. Keeping the knowable unknown is the genuine protective form that self-deception takes. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 886

Categorization

• SEED: The phrase ‘keeping the knowable unknown is the genuine protective form that self-deception takes’ could seed an argument about willful ignorance as an institutional moral disengagement strategy in any domain.
• XREF: Connects to the vault’s claims about how institutions and ordinary people rationalize supporting harmful policy by avoiding evidence. — connects to: Absence of dissent leads subordinates to infer that harmful practices are authorized.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 886